“Do not squander this time. You will never have it again. You have a crucial opportunity to invest in the next season of your life now. Whatever you sow, you will eventually reap. The habits you form in this season will stick with you for the rest of your life. So choose those habits wisely.”
We took another offshoot from the highway which led up into the mountains, though we must be getting soft since we didn’t take the road all the way to the end this time. Instead, we spent three days camping and fishing along the river. I know I have said this a million times already, but camping here in Georgia is probably the best thing about this country. There are plenty of open fields with trees and rivers, most of which already have a fire circle since the picnic culture is so prevalent here. We have now started to take advantage of this to make our own fires, which, as Kevin puts it, makes it “real camping.”
I love potatoes (delicious and super cheap!) but they take a long time to cook (and use a lot of fuel) when we cook them on the backpacking stove, so we typically don’t make them unless we are at a hostel with a kitchen. Since we are now able to make a fire though, we have begun to throw them in and cook them that way!
We cooked up some meat (possibly ground pig?) to go along with them this time.
Popcorn is actually an amazing camping food as well because it’s lightweight, fast to make, and easy to share with a bunch of people. I’ll talk more about different camping food in a later post though.
We then headed back down the road and onto the next mountain road which we were going to take to the end. Unlike the small (very rough) roads we have been taking, this time, we were on the highway which proved to be a little less enjoyable (though not as busy as we had feared!) and thankfully much easier.
Here is a church we passed along the way.
Though the pass was steep, it was nothing compared to our previous one since this time it was paved. We were able to happily make it up and over to the rather famous and touristy mountain town on the other side without any problem.
The Wandering Nomads 
Awesome. I LOVE camping and consider myself quite an expert with campfires:). Beautiful country!
Shirine, after cycling over 40, 000km I’m trying to adjust to having a normal lifestyle. Your beautiful posts keep sabotaging my effort, haha 😉
Haha my boyfriend and I were just discussing that someday when we too try and readjust every time we see a cyclist our heart is going to die a bit since we won’t be out there with them.
Ah yes, it ain’t real camping unless you (and everything else) smell like pine and campfire! 😉
I tour often with a Kelly Kettle as it uses small twigs and dried grass/weeds as it’s fuel source. It allows me to quit worrying about my fuel levels as even in rainy Patagonia I was able to scrounge up dry leaves and twigs from undersides of boulders and downed trees. Once in Canada I used toilet paper as my fuel (thanks to BC Parks) fresh local butter on salted boiled potatoes an amazing camp comfort food.
Hi Shirin
Noe in over-crowded, polluted and city life’s China. Took a look at you blog and it make me smile again, gave me some hope about what we are doing! Hopefully South East Asia will be more wild, I can not wait for it. Congratulation for your writings and picture, YOU MAKE US DREAM!!!
BIG HUGS AND LOVE ALWAYS, leo
Salut salut!!! Oui je pense que la Géorgie et une des meilleurs pays. J’espère que south eats Asia sera mieux pour vous!
Hi Shirin,
its so good reading your posts, i hitch hiked across this great country and you have brought back good memories for me,
Laureene
I wondered about the flag at your bike .. is it English? No, it looks only similiar. But I found helpful informations also in English here http://www.flaggenlexikon.de/fgeorgie.htm
It’s a Georgian flag!